The money flowed around football.
asserted
money → flow → football
It made a lot of other clubs richer.
asserted
lot → make → clubs
It helped teams everywhere and especially in the Premier League.
asserted
It → help → League
These have been some of the arguments used by those backing Manchester City in the media and online since the verdicts declaring the club guilty came in and an appeal was announced.
asserted
appeal → use → media
The suggestion is that there was a net benefit to the game as a whole, and in particular the clubs to whom Manchester City paid big transfer fees.
asserted
City → be → fees
The more than £900m by which the independent commission found the club had "inflated" its accounts was not all spent on transfer fees.
asserted
club → find → fees
Clubs have many bills, including wages for players and other staff, utilities, insurance, infrastructure costs, commercial fees and much more.
asserted
Clubs → have → players
But the roughly £1.2bn Man City spent on players between 2009-2018 (about £900m net spend) was more than anybody else in that period.
asserted
spent → spend → period
That outlay was vital in making them England's most successful club, and would surely have been heavily reduced had they not knowingly broken the rules, as the independent commission concluded.
asserted
commission → make → rules
So where did City's money flow to in the transfer market, and what impact did it have?
asserted
it → flow → impact
Who did Man City pay most money to between 2009 and 2018?
asserted
City → pay → 2009
Football transfers include many costs.
asserted
transfers → include → costs
The amount required to sign the player is the most obvious, but there are also agents fees, legal expenses, administration money and potentially signing-on bonuses.
asserted
amount → require → player
That means the money dished out by Manchester City during the 'asterisk era' will have reached people and bodies who work in the background of football deal-making and is difficult to track.
asserted
who → mean → making
But what can be done is analysis of the fundamental interactions between City and other clubs.
asserted
done → do → City
Below is a list of every club to whom Manchester City paid transfer fees between summer 2009 and winter 2018, in descending order from the most money to the least.
asserted
City → pay → least
The list is for senior players and does not include free transfers, loans or academy graduates.
asserted
list → include → transfers
For some of them, the fees paid by City were the highest the clubs had ever received at the time.
asserted
clubs → pay → time
Looking at the spread of money among clubs demonstrates just how far and wide Manchester City's money was spent.
asserted
money → look → clubs
The split in money spent on transfer fees by City during the timeframe is relatively even across some of the highest-ranked leagues in Europe, though the Premier League is higher than any other.
asserted
League → spend → other
Just over a quarter of their total transfer outlay was paid to clubs in the English top flight.
asserted
quarter → pay → flight
They signed players from eight Premier League clubs, and the same amount in La Liga.
asserted
They → sign → Liga
A combined £13m was spent on two players in the Championship.
asserted
m → combine → Championship
Did the money really help football?
asserted
money → help → football
Manchester City's spending power unquestionably changed the world football transfer market - their willingness to pay higher fees and wages meant prices rose for everybody else too.
And once the world knows that a club has a wedge of cash burning a hole in its pocket courtesy of City, it can be difficult to spend it.
asserted
it → change → it
Asking prices may rise, and having an influx of money is no guarantee of it being well spent.
uncertain
it → ask → money
For many of the teams to whom City paid the most during this time, the money did not work out particularly beneficially.
Let's take a look at some of the more interesting cases.
asserted
's → pay → cases
They immediately signed winger Julian Draxler for about half the fee received for Kevin de Bruyne in 2016, as well as others including veteran defender Dante.
asserted
They → sign → Dante
Having lost De Bruyne, they dropped from second to eighth in the Bundesliga before narrowly avoiding relegation in the subsequent two seasons.
asserted
they → lose → seasons
And things did not go particularly well for second highest-ranked club Monaco either.
asserted
things → go → club
The most direct players they signed following the sales of Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva in the same summer to Manchester City - Terence Kongolo and Keita Balde - did not work out in the long run, and the team went from winning Ligue 1 and reaching the Champions League semi-finals to almost being relegated within two years.
asserted
team → sign → years
The club City purchased most players from in the 2009-18 period - Arsenal (four) - did not mount a serious Premier League title challenge during that time.
asserted
City → purchase → time
Some clubs who did not receive payments from City could also argue that the spending of money from their "inflated" accounts compromised their chances.
uncertain
spending → receive → chances
For example, Manchester City paid very similar totals to Benfica and Porto during the era, but nothing to Sporting, the club which makes up the big three in Portugal.
asserted
which → pay → Portugal
Sporting did not win a title between 2009 and 2018.
asserted
Sporting → win → 2009
There are many reasons for that, but could one of them be the fact that their direct rivals received money from City that would perhaps not have been on offer had they followed football's financial rules?
uncertain
they → be → rules
There are also some ancillary fees which reached clubs whom Manchester City did not deal with directly.
asserted
City → be → whom
Some players were subject to sell-on clauses, where the club City where buying the player from owed money to the previous team who owned the player.
For example, Queens Park Rangers earned roughly £9m from Raheem Sterling's move to City from Liverpool in 2015.
asserted
Rangers → sell → 2015
Barnsley took about £7m of the transfer fee paid to Everton for John Stones in 2016, and the Toffees also had to pass on about £2.5m to Wolves when Joleon Lescott moved to Manchester in 2009.
asserted
Lescott → take → 2009
The Sterling and Stones clauses were worth more than most players operating in the English Football League at that time, significantly strengthening the financial positions of QPR and Barnsley.
To this day Barnsley have not sold a player for a higher amount than the fee they are believed to have received for Stones.
asserted
they → operate → Stones
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
